The Return
by Celesteennui
Summary: They don't speak, it's unnecessary. Elissa knows what he needs. She knows everything; that's why she had been at the docks that night even though he had sent no missives indicating his return from Ath Velanis. One of a thousand things that he has to adore about his queen.


Disclaimer: I don't own it, Bioware does.

Also the image for this story was commissioned by me from hija-ck on tumblr and there is a link to her profile on my profile here.

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They don't speak, it's unnecessary. Elissa knows what he needs. She knows everything; that's why she had been at the docks that night even though he had sent no missives indicating his return from Ath Velanis. One of a thousand things that he has to adore about his queen.

She has questions, he can see them swimming in her bluer than blue eyes—Maker he has missed those beautiful eyes—but they remain beneath her tongue. For the moment at least. Instead of questions, she busies herself with the buckles and fastenings of his armor.

He tries to do the same for her, but she brushes him off, pressing her mouth juncture of his jaw and throat. Wordless assertion that she's here and taking care of him. Lucky for both of them that she can heft him up with one arm because his arousal and tiredness make him swoon and all that holds him up are his wife's strong arms. Alistair swallows hard and lets Elissa get on with it.

She has him out of his rain-soaked and travel-worn armor in just moments. Steering him to the bed's edge (when had she even had time to turn back all of the blankets?), Elissa urges him to sit. Alistair obeys, of course, as if there has ever been a single thing that he could deny her, and then she's on her knees, pulling off his boots and socks.

It makes him wonder, as his wife stands to pour steaming water into a basin near their bedside, how many kings have queens willing to do these little things generally left to servants. Kneeling and removing boots, cleaning up the road's dust from their bodies, and pressing hot possets into their hands to keep them warm while they go about said cleaning. Alistair's gut says that he is alone in this luck and he is more grateful for it than he could ever hope to describe.

After he has been seen to, Elissa undresses herself. Nothing in the motions are meant to be sensual, she shrugs and plucks pulls off her own gear as if she were alone, neatly piling it all to her side of the rooms. She is measured, efficient, and calm. Of course, those things are at the core of what made him fall so totally in love with her to begin with and his body responds accordingly.

Her own clothes are shed much faster than his, due in no small part to the fact that she wore simple ring mail and boiled leather to rendezvous with him at the harbor. Normally Elissa favors plate armor made from Dragon Bone and Volcanic Arum that outweighs a small horse.

Nine years of marriage and the sight of her naked still makes his heart stop. Elissa is strong, built to wear that egregiously heavy armor of hers and swing a greatsword with ease. Her pale skin is a tapestry of scars in some places; he knows the stories behind all of them and finds new beauty in each. The span of her cheekbone so very close beneath her right eye is marked with a thin red line that signifies her luck and his; one of Howe's soldiers when she was fleeing Castle Cousland. She had kept her eye and her life that night and very shortly after stumbled into his. Scorch marks on her left arm, let by the flames of the Archdemon, tell everyone that she is a legend in the flesh. The hard, firm ridges of her stomach and hip are interrupted with the wide mark of a Hurlock's blade. She had nearly died from that wound and it remains a stark, jagged reminder that she is human. The line on her chin, made by Zevran during his attempt to kill them, is proof of her forgiveness, trust, and that while a heart had been mangled it had not been broken to the point where it couldn't see when someone else needed to be saved. The same could probably be said in regards to the jagged claw marks on her right shoulder. Flemeth's memento. Alistair has never understood _why_ Elissa loved Morrigan so, why she was always so willing to place her life in the witch's hands and defend her. Understandable or not, he does adore his wife's ability to see the good where most would only find something to detest.

While he admires, she crosses back to the bed to stand in the "V" of his open legs. There is nothing soft about her hands, they've been swinging heavy blades, climbing cliffs, and throttling monsters too long for "soft" to exist anywhere near Elissa any longer. They are soothing though, as they card his hair and cup the back of his neck. Those hands could—and have—snapped the neck of a Drake in their grip and Alistair only feels safety when he it surrounds him.

The posset he drained to the bone the second that it was in his hands, he lets the goblet fall to the floor now, and winds his arms about Elissa's lower half. He rests his forehead to her abdomen and releases a breath that he didn't even realize he had been holding in.

He has come home.

Nearly four months of not touching his wife or smelling her hair or looking into her eyes. They have dealt with time and distance many times in these last nine years, far more than is fair, but this separation in particular was brutal, though the gravity of it had waited until just now to smack him. He had longed for her sword arm at his back in the Tellari Swamps and for her advice through each and every revelation laid at his feet. For the beautiful smile and laugh that she would have given at the sight of Sten, now Arishok, and how differently things might have gone with those initial negotiations if _she_ were the one asking the Qunari favors. He doesn't think she would have gotten punched. Or maybe she would have. And maybe Elissa would have jumped up and punched back then disappeared along with their old friend to eat cookies in the cabin of his Dreadnought. All quite possible. Most of all he had longed for her hand when he had to free Maric from the Magrallen.

They are reunited now however, and it is enough.

There are still questions in Elissa's eyes as she urges him farther back across the sheets, but she continues to hold them. Instead, she straddles his hips and takes him in hand. Alistair shudders beneath her gaze, lidded and hot as flames. He bucks his assent and she heeds him, positioning him and bearing down.

Alistair keens like he did the first time he was inside of her so many years ago. She made him a man in so many senses of the word and only continues to bolster him now, both in and out of their bedroom. For this, his admiration for his queen is beyond words. Not that words matter now.

They rock together, Elissa controlling the pace. As always, it is steady and gentle; just like her, just as he desires and more importantly needs. Burying his face to her breast, Alistair dies a little in her warmth only to be resuscitated by the sound of her heart. His hands slide up her back and to the swell of her bottom, grasping with enough force that will probably leave a bruise in his craving to be closer. She makes no indication of displeasure, only nudges his face upward.

It isn't much of a kiss. They're breathing far too hard to concentrate on anything proper. Still, there is just as much intimacy, perhaps more, in the tender brush of her mouth to his as their foreheads press.

He is drowning in blue. Her large eyes see through him, right to the bone. They burn him up and then pull him back together. He is helpless and happy in the pull of Elissa's eyes and he never wants to be out of them again. Death would be better.

Climax takes Alistair by surprise; something else that feels so much like the first time. Roaring through his veins, pleasure blinds him and he chokes into the curve of Elissa's neck. Bliss such as this, he always feels might tear him to pieces, but he never lets it worry him; his wife is here and she will hold him together.

Kisses are being peppered across his temple and his jawline when he comes back to himself as Elissa smooths her knuckles across the planes of his back. He trembles, nosing the underside of her chin. Her hair is in his face and even his mouth; Alistair doesn't mind, inhaling the scent of pine needles that no manner of soap has ever been able to wash away.

Maker how does he survive a single breath without this woman at his side?

No amount of time can ever erase the knowledge that Alistair has of Elissa's body. He knows every line of muscle in her steel-boned body, every flick of her eyes, the shudder of every breath, and the stories that they tell. Right now, even with his mind hazy with pleasure, he knows that she did not come with him.

The first time that had happened, he had nearly died of embarrassment. Of course, he was twenty and a virgin back then. While he isn't exactly proud of it today, he is far from that inept, blushing, man-child who couldn't stop stammering "I'm sorry" into Elissa's collarbone.

Some surprise flickers in her eyes when he starts to nudge her from his lap and onto her back. She cups his face as he leans in for a kiss, an eyebrow raised, silently asking if he's sure. She would let him have this tonight, wouldn't mind one little bit going unsated. She's aware that he would repay it later, probably bring her off with his fingers and then his tongue before breakfast, one his favorite things to do. As weary as Alistair is though, he needs to feel Elissa come undone as well, to taste her now because his pleasure doesn't mean anything unless hers matches it.

Story of his life.

He answers her with a firm kiss to the inside of her wrist and palm. Elissa shivers, sighs, and lays back, allowing Alistair to go on.

Normally he likes to take his time. His wife carries more than her share of burdens and he enjoys worshipping her. He could—and has—spend hours running his tongue along the divots and dips of muscle along her abdomen, teasing each nipple to a point until her cries border upon painful, marking the insides of her thighs with bruises in the shape of his teeth. That's for tomorrow though, when the sun is on their sheets and he's ordered everyone in the castle save the servants who bring the trays of food up to stay clear of the royal wing. Tonight needs results.

The scent of her arousal fogs Alistair's brain all over again and makes a certain appendage twitch halfheartedly. The only thing that he misses about his youth; short refractory periods. The experience he's gotten over the years more than makes up for that loss however. For example, his knowledge of the spot inside of her he can curl his fingers against to make her weep.

Andraste's Mercy, he has missed the flavor of her; it's more like coming home than seeing the castle gates was. Just as much, he has missed the feel of her thighs over his shoulders and the flex of muscles around and beneath him. The restraint in her fingertips as she combs his hair urging him to keep going. The needy, guttural noises that she makes, fighting not to buck too hard or clench his head between her thighs too tightly. Most of all he has missed that arch of her back and the deep-throated cry that accompany her unraveling.

He rests his cheek just above the downy black patch of hair, watching the rapid rise and fall of her chest. Fewer sights are better or more sacred.

Enjoying it doesn't last long, ten seconds or so and Elissa is leaning up on her elbows, black hair haloed about her flushed face. She urges him back up into her arms, pressing kiss after kiss to his lips until Alistair can barely breathe. He doesn't mind at all.

Some moments later they are still, Elissa has pulled the blankets up over them but left the candles lit. Her arms surround him, legs twine with his, and her nose skims his as they look at one another. The safest place in the world, the best place in the world, this bed, her arms, and her eyes.

He can break here.

Tears start leaking and Elissa's embrace tightens. Gentle circles are rubbed between the blades of his shoulders. Patient as always, his queen continues to push her questions back and cradles him to her.

"Am I good king?" he manages to ask with a throat that feels as if it will never work properly again.

Her response is immediate and fierce, blue eyes blazing as cups his chin. "You are _my_ king."

And perhaps that should not be the end all and be all of reassurance but it is and the weight that has been coiled in Alistair's chest since he smashed the Magrallen dissipates.


End file.
